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Fri, 31 Jul 2015 18:20:33 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2Sunken city or surging metropolis? 9 visions for the future of New Orleanshttp://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/sunken-city-or-surging-metropolis-9-visions-for-the-future-of-new-orleans/
http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/sunken-city-or-surging-metropolis-9-visions-for-the-future-of-new-orleans/#commentsTue, 30 Jun 2015 16:54:44 +0000http://gnoinc.org/?post_type=news_posts&p=5622The question is a simple one: What will New Orleans be 20 or 30 years from now? Or beyond: What will it be like to live in the New Orleans of 2065?

As NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune begins a years-long discussion about the future of metro New Orleans, we sought answers from a select group of individuals with various stakes in, and differing visions of, our future city.

Their predictions, at turns optimistic and dire, provide a wide-ranging frame for deeper discussions — about our sustainability as a metro area, and our quality of life as residents of it — that will fill these spaces in the coming months.

1. Back to the riverKenneth Schwartz, dean, Tulane School of Architecture

“I predict that there will be at least two major changes to New Orleans in the next 20-30 years. The first is that the Mississippi River will become increasingly accessible, with parks and other developments connecting from the Industrial Canal past what will certainly become a redeveloped power station upriver from the Convention Center.

“This riverfront development of open space and engagement with the river will integrate with a good deal of higher density development within various precincts that adjoin the river, particularly upriver from Poydras Street all the way inland to Magazine Street and perhaps even St. Charles Avenue.

“In the second change, we will see significant investment in and expansion of transit in various forms and more broadly, multi-modal transportation options: bike lanes, increased pedestrian access, more streetcars and bus rapid transit, and a high speed rail between New Orleans downtown, the airport and Baton Rouge.

“As in my first example, this infrastructure evolution and progress will connect directly with smart growth, pedestrian-friendly development including improvements to streetscapes. In many ways, this predicts a return to some of our best traditions in New Orleans, with transit providing mobility choices for many in our community, not requiring them to own or use a car for all of their daily needs.”

“For me, the future of New Orleans is not in buildings and architecture; it’s in how human being treat each other. So many offered help after Katrina because of what they saw in us — the culture that’s evolved here, the cadence and rhythm of life. But a deep legacy of racism exists here, too. How we choose to address that legacy and its connection to poverty and crime will determine our future.

“Our mayor has tried to imagine a New Orleans in which the unemployed black males are instead working middle class jobs. That’s a future I want to see. One in which crime is not a primary issue. One in which we aspire to diversification, not gentrification.

“Mardi Gras, second lines, live music, Saints games: When culture sets the stage, we become human beings and let racial lines dissolve. Then we go back to work and forget it ever happened. In my future New Orleans, we maintain that openness to humanity we feel in those cultural moments. And through persistence, those of us committed to freedom and equity defeat those committed to racism.”

3. Diversified economyMichael Hecht, CEO, Greater New Orleans, Inc.

“One word summarizes the future of the Greater New Orleans economy: diversification. This diversification will be driven by the continued growth of our foundational industries: energy, trade and advanced manufacturing.

“We’ll continue to explore deeper in the Gulf of Mexico for decades, and that exploration will be based and serviced from southeastern Louisiana.

“With the widening of the Panama Canal, and the reestablished ties to Latin American, the Port of New Orleans will continue growing in both bulk and containers.

“And not only will Michoud keeping expanding as a public/private site, but Avondale will come back into commerce as an advanced heavy manufacturing location.

“Our diversification will also be fueled by so-called diversifying sectors: technology, emerging environmental and biomedical. Greater New Orleans will supplant Austin as the hottest technology market in the South. The city will supplant Holland as the world-leader in water and environmental management. We will also become a global destination for neurological care, especially Alzheimer’s treatment.

“The net result will be not only more jobs but more economic stability.”

4. Bicycle-friendly metropolisDan Favre, director, Bike Easy

“Within 10 years, it’s reasonable to envision a future of cycling in New Orleans in which bike lanes and bike paths are interconnected, increasing safety and the perception of safety.

“Before Hurricane Katrina, there were 11 miles of bike lanes in New Orleans; now there are 100 miles of them. That number will continue to grow, and lead to better quality lanes, many of them protected from the road by planters or rows of parked cars.

In 10 to 20 years, we’ll hopefully have fixed the choke points that discourage people from cycling, like the St. Claude Bridge over the Industrial Canal. We’ll have made it easier for people to bike to work and back, with a stop at the grocery store en route. Greater enforcement will have resulted in police handing out more tickets for driving in bike lanes. But as more people embrace the culture of cycling in the city, a shared responsibility will have grown among drivers, bikers and walkers.”

5. From ‘wall city’ to ‘water city’David Waggonner, lead architect, Waggonner and Ball

“For a long time, because of a pact we made with the levee system, we’ve been a wall city. In the future, if we do things right, we will have embraced our new identity as a water city.

“We won’t be fighting water as much because we’ll have learned to embrace it, to live amidst it and to build alongside it. Instead of pumping fresh water out, we’ll let it fill in the vast empty spaces in our landscape. We’ll take down the canal walls and rip out the drainage culverts, enhancing the value of canal-side land for local developers.

“Focusing exclusively on flood defense has not allowed us to be creative. And yet we’re an inherently creative city. Our future is manageable as long as we re-invest in making New Orleans a more natural, attractive and thus more populated place to live.”

“The question isn’t what kind of future New Orleans has. It’s whether New Orleans has a future.

“Right now there’s a lot of complacency because we have so-called “100-year protection” against hurricanes. That’s an Orwellian phrase. Sounds great, but it’s the lowest standard in the civilized world.

“New Orleans will only have a future for one of two reasons: either because of dumb luck, and I do mean dumb, or because the people of New Orleans get as active as they were right after Katrina and do whatever it takes to get that higher standard of protection.

“So far I haven’t seen that demand. The business community has sat on its hands, afraid of offending one of the biggest causes of our increased vulnerability: the oil industry. And the elected officials have done the same thing. Everybody points fingers at the federal government and keeps their mouth shut about the big guy down the block.

“When the physician heals thyself, that’s when I’ll know people are serious, and that’s when we can start talking about the future of New Orleans.

“Until then, it’s just a roll of the dice every time there’s a storm in the Gulf.”

“For me, there are two ways of looking at the future of New Orleans. Without any action, 50 years from now the city will increasingly have evolved into a ‘peninsula’ sticking out into the Gulf of Mexico. I would expect the city will still be livable, but the end will be in sight. Without any action, by that time it will also be clear that catastrophic sea-level rise is unavoidable and planning for abandoning and/or relocating the city will have started.

“If serious action is taken, however, the positive effects of large river diversions will have started to be noticed. These effects may not be noticeable in the first few decades after diversions have been put in place; this is a slow process aimed at the longer term.

“While the rate of sea-level rise will continue to accelerate even with global efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, it will follow a more manageable trajectory (perhaps less than a foot of global sea-level rise within the next 50 years). Still, things will be worse in coastal Louisiana due to the high subsidence rates. Nevertheless, the future of the city will be brighter and it is less likely, under this scenario, that we will seriously discuss relocating the city 50 years from now.”

8. Neighborhoods together … or apart Renia Ehrenfeucht, associate professor/chair, University of New Orleans Department of Planning and Urban Studies

“Where will New Orleans be in 20 or 30 years? New Orleans will be a city with fewer than 500,000 residents and many service sector jobs. Centrally located neighborhoods will have more infill and investment while some suburban neighborhoods will grow less dense.

“But the city is at a crossroads. We can actively move towards a city in which high and low density neighborhoods feel vibrant and occupied, where the whole city has green infrastructure and amenities, and where all people have opportunity. Or we can allow the city to go down a path toward greater disparities among neighborhoods and people.

“The city will look much like it looks today but it is up to us to determine whether it will become a better New Orleans or the worst aspects will dominate.”

“I sense the metropolis and economy we have today will be largely recognizable one generation hence; it’s beyond that horizon that the “knowns” become more “unknowable,” if not flat-out bleak. I’m speaking geophysically: By then, continued subsidence, sea level rise, and coastal erosion will have likely neutralized the gains of our new Risk Reduction System. Will we have maintained and upgraded it?

“Relatedly, I expect the National Flood Insurance Program — its financial solvency, zones, base flood elevations, availability, and rates — to become a driving factor affecting real estate and settlement patterns. People might view this as a political or actuarial issue, but it really reflects geophysical issues.

“In the meantime, local culture and cultural traits will become increasingly lionized, as they have been for the past few years, even as the populace becomes less locally born. Revitalization will come to most pre-World War II commercial districts and … residential areas, and we will continue to see (and debate) gentrification — the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

]]>http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/sunken-city-or-surging-metropolis-9-visions-for-the-future-of-new-orleans/feed/0Climate Change Advisory Panel Recommends Changing Parts of South Park and Georgetown to Prepare for Sea-Level Risehttp://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/climate-change-advisory-panel-recommends-changing-parts-of-south-park-and-georgetown-to-prepare-for-sea-level-rise/
http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/climate-change-advisory-panel-recommends-changing-parts-of-south-park-and-georgetown-to-prepare-for-sea-level-rise/#commentsMon, 29 Jun 2015 17:00:14 +0000http://gnoinc.org/?post_type=news_posts&p=5623Affordable housing, density, and urban mobility are perhaps the most pressing issues in Seattle today. The debates are drawing clashing views on growth, and sometimes even tears. Soon, thanks to climate change, sea-level rise may factor into those debates, too.

On Friday, a “coastal resilience panel” from the Urban Land Institute—a nonprofit group made up of real-estate developers, urban planners, and academics—convened at the Duwamish Longhouse to discuss how increased flooding may impact South Park andGeorgetown, two of the city’s most vulnerable neighborhoods to sea-level rise. Panelists had spent the previous week interviewing stakeholders in the neighborhoods and coming up with a series of recommendations to make the areas more resilient to climate change.

It’s no exaggeration to say that sea-level rise could make conditions in both South Park and Georgetown (literally) shitty

In the event of increased flooding because of sea-level rise or torrential downpours intensified by climate change, the city’s combined sewer system would be overwhelmed. Existing pollution in the water and soil along with area sewers backing up could create new problems on the surface in both neighborhoods. Food availability could become an issue, too, as the neighborhoods rely on food that’s been trucked in from elsewhere.

Poor public transit options and connectivity among neighborhoods could also isolate residents if something “cataclysmic”—the panel’s term—occurred. The panel estimated that while the area represents some $30 to $50 billion of property investment, the economic loss from a cataclysmic event (earthquake, tsunami) with current infrastructure would cost much more.

Here’s a handful of the panel’s ideas to mitigate the worst. Some of them are interesting, some foreseeably controversial:

• Connect isolated neighborhoods with staircases, bike and pedestrian pathways, and bridges. This way, if flooding or an earthquake chokes off roadways, people have a way to evacuate and first responders have ways to get in.

• Channel some of the developer investment in Sodo toward retrofitting parts of Georgetown and South Park. This could be accomplished by creating an “urban resiliency fund” to help low-income homeowners lift their homes or help business owners build berms. “You don’t have to wait for federal funds,” panelist Josh Ellis, program director at Chicago’s Metropolitan Planning Council, said. Instead, Seattle could raise local revenue through a a number of mechanisms (like linkage fees) to take a percentage of developer money and direct it into resiliency funding.

• Create better connections among governmental organizations. Panelist Lacy Strohshein, a business development associate at Greater New Orleans, Inc., used an example from her own city after Katrina. While groups were already individually working on a number of projects to protect the coastline, she said, they didn’t create a coordinated effort.

• Use participatory budgeting to let communities choose projects.

• Upzone in order to remove some limitations around single-family homes. Ellis suggested that keeping parts of South Park and Georgetown zoned for single-family homes prevents diversity of infrastructure—and more affordable housing supply—along the waterfront. That could make building for resiliency much more difficult, according to the panel, because one of the ways to protect the waterfront would be to design it with mixed-use buildings and have homeowners and developers add more protections into the built environment. (It should be noted, however, that the manufacturing industry on the waterfront has feared the creep of gentrification for quite some time. Upzoning could stoke a fight over some of those fears.)

The good news, according to the ULI panel, is that no one will have to “retreat” from the waterfront in Seattle because of sea-level rise. The panel aims to issue a full report with more detailed recommendations in the next few months. Then it’s up to the city to decide whether to use any of those recommendations.

]]>http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/climate-change-advisory-panel-recommends-changing-parts-of-south-park-and-georgetown-to-prepare-for-sea-level-rise/feed/0GNO, Inc. Recognizes, Supports National Disaster Resilience Competition Finalistshttp://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/gno-inc-recognizes-supports-national-disaster-resilience-competition-finalists/
http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/gno-inc-recognizes-supports-national-disaster-resilience-competition-finalists/#commentsFri, 26 Jun 2015 16:47:59 +0000http://gnoinc.org/?post_type=news_posts&p=5621GNO, Inc. has pledged support to the Louisiana finalists for the U.S. Housing & Urban Development Department’s (HUD) National Disaster Resilience Competition. The State of Louisiana, Jefferson Parish, the City of New Orleans, and St. Tammany Parish will now move to Phase Two of the competition.

HUD’s National Disaster Resilience Competition makes $1 billion available to communities that have been struck by natural disasters in recent years. The competition promotes risk assessment, stakeholder engagement, and planning and will fund the implementation of innovative resilience projects to better prepare communities for future storms and other extreme events. Funding for the competition is from the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) appropriation provided by the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2013 (PL 113-2), which made emergency funds available for Hurricane Sandy and other Presidentially declared major disasters occurring in 2011-2013.

“Greater New Orleans, Inc. is pleased to support the Louisiana applicants for the National Disaster Resilience Competition,” said Michael Hecht, President and CEO of Greater New Orleans, Inc. “This innovative competition will ensure that Louisiana continues to be on the forefront of resilience, and will make us a safer and economically productive region for the long-term. We are pleased that the Greater New Orleans Water Plan has featured prominently in the Louisiana applications and look forward to working with all four finalists in Phase 2 of the competition.”

“We are pleased that HUD recognized the need for continued improvement to the state’s resilience by moving our application, along with those of Jefferson and St. Tammany parishes and the City of New Orleans, into the next phase of this competition,” said Pat Forbes, Executive Director of the Louisiana Office of Community Development. “We’re excited for the opportunity to work with our partners to fully develop our ideas into real resilience-improving projects that address the needs we’ve heard from our affected citizens and to create our Phase 2 application.”

“Jefferson Parish is pleased to be selected as a finalist in Phase II of HUD’s National Disaster Resilience Competition,” said Jefferson Parish President John Young. Phase I allowed Jefferson Parish to work with talented partners such as GNO, Inc., JEDCO, CPRA, and our neighboring communities to identify disaster risks as well as collaborate on projects that foster resilience throughout Jefferson Parish and Southeast Louisiana. Jefferson Parish recognizes the delicate balance between water and the need to embrace sound water management practices to maintain our culturally unique community.”

“New Orleans knows the dangerous impacts of a natural disaster all too well and the importance of preparation,” said New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. “As New Orleans approaches the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina later this year and our 300th anniversary in 2018, our focus is on building a better, stronger and more resilient community that is fully prepared for whatever challenges we may face in the future. I am very proud that New Orleans has been selected as a finalist for the National Disaster Resilience Competition and am confident our innovative, comprehensive proposals will do well in the next and final stage. Through our partnership and collaboration with The Rockefeller Foundation as a part of 100 Resilient Cities initiative, New Orleans is already showcasing our ability to successfully rebound from disasters and man-made chronic stresses and to learn from others. New Orleans is the nation’s greatest laboratory for innovation and change, and I look forward to working with HUD and the Rockefeller Foundation as we implement new ideas and strategies here in New Orleans in order to share the lessons we learn with communities all over America.”

“The opportunity to compete as finalists in the National Disaster Resilience Competition is incredibly exciting,” said Pat Brister, St. Tammany Parish President. “It places us in a position to receive significant funding to implement resiliency projects, such as flood protection, infrastructure enhancement, and economic development. As we look to the future of St. Tammany, our goal is to invest in multi-layered projects that protect our residents and their property, and at the same time preserve our quality of life.”

Aligned closely with a companion education and technical assistance effort by the Rockefeller Foundation, HUD’s competition is designed to help states and local communities recover from past disasters while improving their ability to withstand future extreme events through strategic community investments.

]]>http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/gno-inc-recognizes-supports-national-disaster-resilience-competition-finalists/feed/0New Orleans to host thousands of tech types for Collision 2016http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/new-orleans-to-host-thousands-of-tech-types-for-collision-2016/
http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/new-orleans-to-host-thousands-of-tech-types-for-collision-2016/#commentsTue, 23 Jun 2015 16:43:51 +0000http://gnoinc.org/?post_type=news_posts&p=5620Collision, a national summit that draws speakers from the world’s most disruptive technology startups such as Twitter and Netflix, is moving its annual conference to New Orleans in 2016. Local officials have billed the move as a major win for the city as it seeks to raise its profile as a tech hub.

Collision will be held April 26-28, 2016 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, with various evening events scattered across the city.

The conference — held in Las Vegas for the past two years — drew 7,500 attendees from 89 different countries this year. Attendees include executives from Fortune 500 companies and fast-growing startups as well as leading tech investors.

Collision is the U.S. sister conference to Europe’s wildly popular Web Summit, which has grown from 4,000 to 22,000 attendees since starting in Dublin in 2010.

In a statement, Paddy Cosgrave, founder of Web Summit, said Collision is experiencing similar growth. Cosgrave and other organizers chose to relocate the conference to New Orleans after touring more than a dozen cities.

Cosgrave, who spent time touring the city with local leaders, called New Orleans “one of the most magical cities on earth.”

Chris Schultz, a co-founder of LaunchPad, a collaborative workspace for local entrepreneurs, and one of Cosgrave’s tour guides, has agreed to co-host Collision 2016. Flatstack, a software development company with offices in New Orleans and Kazan, Russia, will share a hosting role.

Tourism and economic development officials pointed to Collision 2016 as evidence New Orleans is gaining recognition as a tech hub.

Michael Hecht, CEO of Greater New Orleans Inc., said Collision organizers saw similarities between New Orleans and Dublin. Both are emerging tech centers, cities where innovative minds gather to share ideas, he said.

“Much as Ireland has emerged as a premier technology hub of Europe, New Orleans is quickly following suit here in America,” Hecht said. “We look forward to hosting some of the brightest minds in technology next April.”

]]>http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/new-orleans-to-host-thousands-of-tech-types-for-collision-2016/feed/0Collision Tech Conference Moving To New Orleans In 2016http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/collision-tech-conference-moving-to-new-orleans-in-2016/
http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/collision-tech-conference-moving-to-new-orleans-in-2016/#commentsMon, 22 Jun 2015 16:25:24 +0000http://gnoinc.org/?post_type=news_posts&p=5601NEW ORLEANS – New Orleans will welcome Collision, the sister event to Web Summit, the biggest technology conference in Europe. Collision is a vision for a new type of tech conference for America – a meeting place for people building the companies of tomorrow and managing the companies of today.

Collision 2015 saw 7,500 attendees from 89 different countries around the globe coming together in Las Vegas, NV. This spanned 1,000 startups, 450 of the world’s leading tech investors and over 200 world-class speakers.

Collision will be held in New Orleans on April 26-28, 2016.

“We wholeheartedly welcome Collision to New Orleans as this event continues to be the fastest growing technology event in the U.S.,” said Michael Hecht, President and CEO of Greater New Orleans, Inc. “From the first discussions with their team, similarities between their home in Dublin and New Orleans were quickly found. Much as Ireland has emerged as a premier technology hub of Europe, New Orleans is quickly following suit here in America. We look forward to hosting some of the brightest minds in technology next April.”

“It is fantastic that Collision is coming to New Orleans next year and we intend to surpass its attendees’ expectations of our city,” said Stephen Perry President and CEO of the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We believe that no place inspires like New Orleans. From the music you hear as you walk through the streets, to the beautiful architecture and art that surrounds our daily lives and, of course, the incredible culinary options unmatched anywhere else in the world. All of these experiences delight and inspire our visitors and citizens to create a uniquely fertile time and place for creative thinking and collaboration. We hope that this is the first of many Collision conferences in New Orleans.”

“Choosing New Orleans as the location for 2016’s summit is recognition of the hard work of many New Orleans business leaders over the past few years to establish the city as a major tech hub with the growth of tech talent, career opportunities and the quality of life to sustain the momentum we’ve begun,” Perry said.

The annual summit is expected to bring thousands of attendees to the city. Attendees range from Fortune 500 companies to the world’s most exciting tech companies. The conference is known for world-class speakers and incredible networking opportunities. The event’s name derives from the concept that innovation, experience, and investment can collide in a fast-paced and fertile environment to create dynamic partnerships.

Web Summit, Collision’s sister conference in Europe, started in 2010 and has become Europe’s biggest tech conference. According to Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave, Collision is growing five times faster. New Orleans was selected after organizers looked at more than a dozen cities. Collision has been held in Las Vegas for the past two years.

Collision will be co-hosted by Chris Schultz, the co-founder of Launch Pad, a collaborative workspace and community of entrepreneurs, creative professionals and freelancers and Flatstack, a global software development company with offices in New Orleans, Louisiana and Kazan, Russia.

Summit’s Cosgrave said, “I experienced one of the most magical cities on earth through the eyes of Chris Schultz. And that’s when I knew Collision in 2016 had found a new home like no other in the world and a wonderful co-host in the form of Chris Schultz,”

The selection of New Orleans coincides with the city’s rise as a leading technology hub. Recent company relocations and overall growth in this industry by companies such as GE Capital, Gameloft, and High Voltage Software have earned New Orleans accolades which include being named “America’s Biggest Brain Magnet” by Forbes, the “#2 Boomtown in America” by Bloomberg, the “#3 City Winning the IT Jobs Battle” by Forbes, and the #2 “Aspirational” City in the U.S. by Daily Beast.

“It speaks volumes when a technology conference the size and scope of Collision selects your city and the Convention Center was happy to play an important role in the effort,” said Bob Johnson, Convention Center General Manager. “The unprecedented collaboration between the Convention Center, the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau and GNO Inc. can count this as a big win for the city. It is best practice for how tourism is a part of economic development and this is one of several ongoing initiatives we have with these partners.”

The events during the day will be held at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and in the evenings, events will be scattered throughout the city’s bars, restaurants, streets, and beyond. Collision 2016 is planning to kick off the conference with a series of bar crawls led by New Orleanians—musicians, chefs, artists, bartenders—all sharing their personal New Orleans with Collision attendees.

“We are happy to announce that New Orleans will host Collision 2016,” said Mayor Mitch Landrieu. “With a booming entrepreneurial community, great venues and a vibrant, diverse culture, New Orleans is the perfect city for world-class events. This is another indication that the world is taking notice of the renewed energy of this great American city.”

This year’s Collision in Las Vegas featured more than 200 world-class speakers and the world’s leading technology journalists and welcomed attendees from 89 countries around the world. It is expected that attendees from more than 100 countries will come to New Orleans in 2016. USA Today described it as “a confluence of start-ups, venture capitalists and investors.”

]]>http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/collision-tech-conference-moving-to-new-orleans-in-2016/feed/0After Hurricane Katrina: How federal aid helped the region rebuild, improvehttp://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/after-hurricane-katrina-how-federal-aid-helped-the-region-rebuild-improve-advocate-staff-photo-by-john-mccusker-the-new-permanent-london-avenue-canal-pumping-station-is-under-construction-where/
http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/after-hurricane-katrina-how-federal-aid-helped-the-region-rebuild-improve-advocate-staff-photo-by-john-mccusker-the-new-permanent-london-avenue-canal-pumping-station-is-under-construction-where/#commentsSat, 20 Jun 2015 15:49:46 +0000http://gnoinc.org/?post_type=news_posts&p=5597It took nearly three centuries to build the New Orleans that stood on Aug. 28, 2005, and just hours to destroy it.

Tens of thousands of homes and businesses, churches and hospitals — all the structures of civic life, the collective work and legacies of half a million inhabitants and numerous previous generations — were left soggy, broken shells.

A decade later, the most ambitious recovery program the country has ever seen is in its final phases.

An unprecedented $71 billion in federal assistance has remade southeast Louisiana in ways large and small, from the temporary blue-tarp roofs that dotted the landscape in late 2005 to the higher, stronger levees that replaced the ones that failed so catastrophically on Aug. 29, spilling tragedy into the region.

The federal money spent on rebuilding south Louisiana in the decade since hurricanes Katrina and Rita is roughly equivalent to what officials in Baton Rouge would typically spend on capital projects statewide over 60 years. Taken together with the emergency aid it provided in the storms’ aftermath, the federal government has spent three times the annual state budget on Louisiana’s recovery.

“We’ll never see this again in our lifetime,” said Cedric Grant, director of the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board and Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s point man on public works.

Though slow to launch, the spending made possible by the huge federal aid package also helped to sustain a population that had been scattered by the storms and sparked an economic boom that carried New Orleans through the worst of a national recession.

And the effects will be much longer-lasting. The massive rebuild, focused in southeast Louisiana but stretching across the state, in many cases allowed communities — especially New Orleans — to greatly improve infrastructure that was in appallingly bad condition when Katrina struck.

Today, an entire region whose very future was uncertain a decade ago is preparing to draw down the last of the federal aid. More than 92 percent of the money allotted to response and recovery efforts has been spent.

The money has covered more than 30,000 individual projects across south Louisiana, including the gleaming new University Medical Center in Mid-City, mile upon mile of restored roadways and bridges, and a hugely upgraded levee system ringing the New Orleans area. That’s in addition to the roughly 100,000 homes that were repaired with help from the government.

The federal assistance also has enabled the state to be more prepared for the next disaster, with major programs aimed at raising houses and better planning and shelter for evacuations.

A long slog

The recovery has been painful and frustrating at times.

The initial infusions of federal aid — perhaps in atonement for the botched government response in the week after Katrina’s landfall — came quickly and relatively free of red tape.

Cash cards were doled out, and tarps were stretched across broken roofs. Soon, the tiny travel trailers that would become home to thousands of New Orleanians for months and even years became a ubiquitous feature of city life.

FEMA spent almost $5.3 billion on that temporary assistance in the wake of Katrina and another $524 million after Rita. Another $842 million was plugged into safety-net programs such as food stamps, welfare and unemployment.

Meanwhile, crews began hauling away debris in a huge effort that eventually would grow to cost $1.15 billion.

But that short-term momentum wouldn’t last, as the immediate response gave way to the long, hard slog of a more permanent recovery.

Residents’ returns became tangled in the bureaucracy of massive programs that had to be developed from scratch. Leaders were forced to battle the federal government for what was, after all, a disaster rooted in the engineering failures of a federally guaranteed flood protection system.

No program had as high a priority — or was as difficult to put together — as the oft-maligned Road Home program, which has provided almost $9 billion to residents to rebuild their homes or to sell them to the government.

It was a response to a unique situation that saw an entire city in the throes of recovery, rather than just certain neighborhoods, former Gov. Kathleen Blanco said.

“You never (before) had a metro area go down completely,” she said.

But the program was hamstrung, first by fights in Congress over whether to provide the whole amount sought by the state and then by problems in the newly created program itself.

The Road Home would become a symbol for the phlegmatic recovery, with an inefficient bureaucracy that was slow to hand out checks, lacked oversight to make sure residents weren’t ripped off by contractors, and was unable to hold homeowners to their promises to fix up their properties.

Closing the books

Ten years later, state officials are working to close the books on Road Home, aided by a three-year contract with nonprofits that will work with the 4,500 people in the New Orleans area yet to complete renovations.

Warts and all, though, the Road Home helped a huge number of people get back.

“Those are hundreds of thousands of individuals and families that were able to stay in Louisiana, stay in their communities so the communities they live in could rebuild and recover,” said Kristy Nichols, director of the state Division of Administration.

Officials argue that some missteps and setbacks were inevitable, given that the unwieldy program had no precedent and had to be built from the ground up.

“In terms of every recovery effort — whether it be developing permanent housing, whether it be Road Home — those are so large-scale they were completely new to this country in terms of how to recover,” Nichols said. “In any effort of that magnitude, you’re going to learn lessons every day about those programs.”

Homeowners also would find assistance through other federal programs.

One of the biggest chunks of money — though it is not an aid program per se — came from the federally run National Flood Insurance Program, which paid out about $13.2 billion to policyholders for their flood losses.

The U.S. Small Business Administration, which provides low-interest loans in the wake of natural disasters, issued about $4.8 billion in loans to Louisiana homeowners and another $1.5 billion to businesses.

That largesse, combined with the Road Home, meant a lot of aid for homeowners, but the huge population of renters in the city had fewer places to turn.

The Road Home’s Small Rental Program got off to a late start and distributed just a fraction of the aid devoted to the homeowner program, about $429 million.

University of New Orleans urban planning professor Marla Nelson said the focus on owner-occupied housing has contributed to the “uneven” redevelopment of the city and made it particularly difficult for working-class residents to thrive.

Some of those problems are due to a hot housing market, which has made affordable housing scarce and likely would have been unimaginable to New Orleans officials who, before the storm, were used to decades of declining population and low housing costs, she said.

But a plan with more explicit goals of equitable recovery for all residents could have changed that dynamic, as could more public input and oversight of where money for infrastructure projects was used, she said.

Dome fix fast, atpyical

Rebuilding large public assets also would prove challenging — and slow.

An exception was the Superdome, battered by the storm and a worldwide symbol of misery in its immediate aftermath. The Blanco administration made it a priority to get the befouled stadium ready for the return of the New Orleans Saints, putting a Dome overhaul on the fast track. It cost about $137.5 million.

While some questioned the decision, given that hundreds of thousands were still struggling to return to normalcy, it had both a symbolic and practical rationale, Blanco said — particularly as Saints owner Tom Benson was talking about picking up and moving the team.

“I understood something from day one: I looked at that torn roof on the Superdome, and I knew if we didn’t get that eyesore, that symbol of destruction, fixed quickly, we’d be demoralized and we’d lose the Saints,” she said.

The Saints would return in triumph in September 2006, reopening the stadium on “Monday Night Football,” trouncing the rival Falcons and giving the region a collective lift that many marked as the happiest day since the storm.

If the Dome revamp was a model of efficiency, other infrastructure projects proved far more vexing.

Andy Kopplin, who headed the Louisiana Recovery Authority after the storm and now serves as Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s chief administrative officer, recalled the early years of the recovery as a time when the state was “building mountains of paperwork rather than buildings.”

The process eventually gave way to results, Kopplin said. The Landrieu administration made finishing the public projects a priority, with 100 completed in the mayor’s first year in office and many more since.

The breadth of the various efforts touches on almost every aspect of life in Louisiana.

There are the mega-projects: the Dome; the $1 billion new University Medical Center in New Orleans, expected to open later this year, which will replace Charity Hospital and which drew more than 64 percent of its funding from FEMA; and the biggest of them all — the $14.5 billion in upgrades to the regional levee system.

There’s a wide array of other high-dollar projects. About $1.8 billion went to rebuilding New Orleans’ schools, in a rare lump-sum agreement with FEMA that didn’t tie the money to specific buildings, allowing local officials to decide how best to spend the money.

Across the state, federal money also has paid for untold miles of revamped roadway. FEMA put up $283 million for street and bridge repairs, and the U.S. Department of Transportation provided another $208 million. The Twin Spans, which carry Interstate 10 from New Orleans to Slidell and serve as a key east-west link for the nation, were replaced with a pair of higher bridges for $770 million after Katrina’s surge knocked several segments off their piers.

Federal block grants provided $49.8 million to purchase Methodist Hospital, which reopened last year as the city-owned New Orleans East Hospital. Another $17.9 million went toward streetcars for the Canal Street line.

Not every project was so large or far-reaching. Thousands of them used just a few thousand dollars or less — for instance, the repair of the air-conditioning unit in the Audubon Zoo’s cockatoo exhibit, accomplished with $2,900 in FEMA money.

An endless back-and-forth

Many, if not most, of the projects required seemingly interminable haggling between local governments and FEMA over what was actual storm damage and thus eligible for federal money and what were pre-existing problems.

Craig Taffaro, the former St. Bernard Parish president who now directs the state’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, noted that FEMA initially had far lower damage estimates.

“FEMA projected the recovery was about a $6 billion to $7 billion effort,” Taffaro said. “It’s twice that and will be more by the time it’s over.” FEMA has now spent a total of $19.5 billion, including on emergency operations after the storm.

The negotiations with FEMA can often veer into minutiae, such as who should pay to add wheelchair ramps to ancient sidewalks. It’s tedious but well worth it, officials say.

“We went back to the drawing board with FEMA and have secured almost a billion dollars of additional FEMA funding for the city by effectively pressing our case and documenting our losses,” Kopplin said.

Agreeing on cost isn’t the only hurdle. Local governments and FEMA also have been slowed by the sheer volume of work, Taffaro said.

“A typical parish might build one fire station over five years. Now you’ve got to build 15 fire stations over the same period of time,” he said.

While much of the recovery work in New Orleans will be winding down by 2018, according to Kopplin, some key tabs remain unsettled. The biggest is likely the Sewerage & Water Board, which is still trying to broker a final settlement with FEMA. The resulting money, combined with rate increases, will cover a backlog of projects extending to 2030.

In the end, the city hopes to secure a total of $2 billion to repair streets and pipes and finish other projects.

That amount would be transformational for the city’s decrepit infrastructure.

A sum of that size normally would be pieced together over decades, and by the time the last dollar was spent, the first projects would be nearing the end of their lifespan.

“What we’re doing, you couldn’t do in a generation,” Grant said.

Broader ripples

The injection of so much federal money has gone beyond bricks and mortar.

In 2008, the country was rocked by the collapse of the housing bubble and plummeted into what came to be known as the Great Recession. Industries across the spectrum struggled, with construction hit hardest.

But as Congress was debating the wisdom and size of a stimulus package aimed at jump-starting the national economy, Louisiana was tapping the recovery dollars that would provide a more localized booster shot.

A year after Katrina, there were more than 32,000 construction jobs in the New Orleans metro area, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was almost 2,000 more than before the flood, even though the city’s population had fallen by 60 percent.

Construction jobs would peak in October 2008 and remain largely stable over the next several years, even as work dried up for builders elsewhere.

“It just happened to hit us right when the rest of the country’s economy was in a downturn, and all of a sudden, the only place in the country where money was being spent, certainly in a construction sense, was New Orleans,” said Melissa Gibbs, of Gibbs Construction.

For builders, the aftermath of the storm was a blur.

Crews were dispatched to repair levees, clean out government buildings and install trailers for returning residents.

In one case, Gibbs said, workers donned hazmat suits to block the horrendous smell of “thousands” of dead and dying fish they were hired to scoop out of a large, stagnant pool of water next to a flooded pump station in the Lower 9th Ward.

“When we had the opportunity to help put things back together again , all of us … felt an urgent need to help as much as we could,” she said.

As the recovery work winds down, construction jobs are decreasing, but the area is replacing those jobs with growth in other sectors, said Michael Hecht, who worked with the state’s economic development department after the storm and now heads the public-private economic development group GNO Inc.

Those include biomedical industries centered around the new hospital complex in Mid-City, growth in trade and the energy sector, the growing tech industry and new retail developments.

“The momentum is real, and the momentum does have the beginnings of a virtuous cycle,” Hecht said.

]]>http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/after-hurricane-katrina-how-federal-aid-helped-the-region-rebuild-improve-advocate-staff-photo-by-john-mccusker-the-new-permanent-london-avenue-canal-pumping-station-is-under-construction-where/feed/0Governor Jindal And Netchex CEO Will Boudreaux Announce Company’s 240-Job Expansion In Covington Officehttp://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/governor-jindal-and-netchex-ceo-will-boudreaux-announce-companys-240-job-expansion-in-covington-office/
http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/governor-jindal-and-netchex-ceo-will-boudreaux-announce-companys-240-job-expansion-in-covington-office/#commentsThu, 18 Jun 2015 16:20:31 +0000http://gnoinc.org/?post_type=news_posts&p=5600MANDEVILLE, LA — Today, Governor Bobby Jindal and Netchex founder and CEO Will Boudreaux announced the company will establish a new headquarters facility in Mandeville. Netchex will invest $5.3 million to lease 30,000 square feet of office space for two years followed by the completion of a new headquarters building. As part of the expansion, Netchex will retain 86 jobs and create 240 new direct jobs, with an average salary of $43,800, plus benefits. LED estimates the project will result in an additional 120 new indirect jobs, for a total of 360 new jobs in the region.

Netchex provides its clients with a comprehensive suite of Web-based services and the support of payroll services specialists. The company was established in Mandeville in 2003 and has grown into a leading provider of payroll, human resources, time and attendance, and benefit services in the South. The company has offices in Dallas, Atlanta and Jackson, Mississippi, and has an overall workforce of nearly 120.

“The unbeatable combination of low business costs and a skilled workforce found in our region has helped Netchex become the fastest growing company of its kind in the United States,” said President and CEO Michael Hecht of Greater New Orleans Inc. “This decision to expand their operations in Mandeville demonstrates that the Greater New Orleans region serves as the ideal location for business growth and success.”

Governor Jindal said, “Netchex is truly a Louisiana success story, and the expansion of the company’s headquarters is a testament to how Netchex is able to thrive in Louisiana’s nation-leading business climate. Netchex has grown from a small team to the fastest-growing business services provider of its kind in America, thanks in part to the company’s stellar leadership team and the highly skilled talent that could only be found in Louisiana. We congratulate Will Boudreaux and his entire team as they start this exciting new chapter in the company’s history.”

Founders Boudreaux and Stuart Ethridge had previous executive experience in the payroll industry for publicly traded firms before they set out to establish Netchex. Taking on industry giants, the pair embraced the tenets of Web integration, accountability for service, and value, eventually making Netchex one of the South’s largest employee services providers. The company’s steady growth led to the need for an expanded headquarters facility.

“As we looked at our growth trajectory, it was clear that we needed a larger footprint physically to support our efforts,” Boudreaux said. “The expansion plan includes migrating to a facility to absorb our growth, better manage our business and be reflective of the strong brand we have built. Additionally, this expansion plan serves as a real beacon to promote quality jobs here in St. Tammany Parish. We turned to LED for guidance and support when we recognized that rapid expansion was needed. They were tremendous in fully understanding our priorities and creating a custom package that met all of our needs. No doubt, their ability to leverage competitive state programs cemented our decision to grow Netchex right here in Louisiana.”

LED began discussing expansion plans with Netchex in January 2015. To secure the headquarters expansion, the State of Louisiana offered a competitive incentive package that includes the services of LED FastStart® – the nation’s No. 1-ranked state workforce development program. The company will participate in the state’s Digital Interactive Media and Software Development Incentive, and Netchex is expected to utilize the state’s Quality Jobs Program.

“Netchex has fostered strong relationships in Mandeville, and their desire to expand locally is a testament to the vitality of our local economy,” said Mayor Donald Villere of Mandeville. “Will Boudreaux, Stuart Ethridge, and their entire, enterprising team are a credit to Mandeville’s growing business community.”

Though Netchex has additional office locations in the South, Louisiana won the site selection competition with other states, including locations in Texas and Florida, to ensure Netchex would retain and expand its headquarters in Mandeville. The company will begin moving into the leased office space in early 2016. Hiring for the new positions has begun.

“Netchex’s expansion in St. Tammany Parish illustrates the ideal business retention success story, growing local human capital and further developing our workforce,” said CEO Brenda Bertus of the St. Tammany Economic Development Foundation. “Thanks to these innovative entrepreneurs, even more customers across the country will have access to cutting-edge information technologies developed right here in St. Tammany.”

]]>http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/governor-jindal-and-netchex-ceo-will-boudreaux-announce-companys-240-job-expansion-in-covington-office/feed/0Governor Jindal and First Bauxite CEO Alan Roughead Announce Proposed $200 Million Bauxite Processing Investment in Louisianahttp://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/governor-jindal-and-first-bauxite-ceo-alan-roughead-announce-proposed-200-million-bauxite-processing-investment-in-louisiana/
http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/governor-jindal-and-first-bauxite-ceo-alan-roughead-announce-proposed-200-million-bauxite-processing-investment-in-louisiana/#commentsThu, 18 Jun 2015 16:16:03 +0000http://gnoinc.org/?post_type=news_posts&p=5599BATON ROUGE— Today, Governor Bobby Jindal and President and CEO Alan Roughead of First Bauxite Corp. of Canada announced the company plans to invest $200 million to develop a bauxite processing plant on the Mississippi River in St. John the Baptist Parish. The project would create 100 new direct jobs ranging from entry level to skilled trade and professional management positions at an average annual salary of $70,000, plus benefits. Louisiana Economic Development estimates the project would result in an additional 117 new indirect jobs, for a total of more than 200 jobs in the River Parishes and the Southeast Louisiana region. At peak building activity, the company estimates the project would generate 150 construction jobs.

Based in Toronto, First Bauxite has concluded a feasibility study calling for the company to mine bauxite – an alumina-based ore – from Guyana, on the northern coast of South America, and ship it to Louisiana. There, the company would use the bauxite to manufacture ceramic proppants for the oil and gas industry. Proppants are sands or manufactured ceramic materials added to an industrial fluid to keep a hydraulic facture open – during or following the fracking process.

Governor Jindal said, “This exciting project by First Bauxite Corp. of Canada demonstrates the breadth of foreign direct investment opportunities here in Louisiana. With world-class transportation facilities and industrial sites, along with abundant energy resources and outstanding workforce talent, Louisiana has become an ideal location for major investments by both foreign and domestic companies. These factors have combined to attract this impressive project to St. John the Baptist Parish and the kind of high-quality jobs we’ve worked so hard to create for Louisiana families.”

First Bauxite plans to build the plant on a 30-acre tract at the Globalplex Intermodal Terminal, which is owned and operated by the Port of South Louisiana in Reserve.

“Completion of our feasibility study is a significant milestone in the development of our bauxite industrial minerals project,” Roughead said. “The proposed facility will be located in a region offering competitive infrastructure, energy, labor and market access. We are very grateful for the assistance provided by LED, the Port of South Louisiana and the local authorities and business community.”

LED began discussing the potential project with the company in March 2014. To secure the project, the state offered a competitive incentive package that includes a performance-based grant of $950,000 to offset the costs of infrastructure improvements, and First Bauxite would receive the comprehensive solutions of LED FastStart®, the top-ranked state workforce development program in the nation. The company also is expected to utilize the state’s Quality Jobs and Industrial Tax Exemption programs.

In the third quarter of 2015, First Bauxite plans to initiate discussions with third parties to develop strategic initiatives to finance the project. If financing for the project is secured, the planned construction period is 27 months, followed by an estimated three-year production ramp-up.

“It is a great time to be in St. John the Baptist Parish and we are extremely pleased that First Bauxite Corp. is preparing to make its $200 million investment along our industrial corridor,” St. John the Baptist Parish President Natalie Robottom said. “A project of this magnitude creates new quality jobs for our residents, increases opportunities for local business owners and enhances economic development of the parish. St. John relies heavily on industrial support and collaboration and this investment improves the parish’s overall competitiveness. We look forward to working with representatives of First Bauxite to bring this project to fruition.”

“The Port of South Louisiana is very pleased that First Bauxite has chosen to construct its planned new bauxite plant at the port’s Globalplex Terminal in Reserve,” said Port of South Louisiana Executive Director Paul Aucoin. “We look forward to working with them and making this project a huge success. We are particularly happy about the 100 new good-paying jobs that will come with the project.”

“Greater New Orleans Inc. is pleased to welcome First Bauxite Corp. to the region,” said GNO Inc. President and CEO Michael Hecht. “First Bauxite’s plan to invest in a bauxite-processing plant reaffirms that Louisiana’s combination of business climate, logistics and local support make it a top location for industrial projects. We look forward to working with First Bauxite Corp. to ensure their success.”About First Bauxite Corp.
First Bauxite Corp. (TSX-V: FBX) is a Canadian natural resource company engaged in the exploration and development of bauxite deposits in Guyana, South America. The company has its head office in Toronto and is managed by experienced professionals with worldwide experience in the global industrial minerals industry across a number of industrial minerals. For more information, visit FirstBauxite.com.

]]>http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/governor-jindal-and-first-bauxite-ceo-alan-roughead-announce-proposed-200-million-bauxite-processing-investment-in-louisiana/feed/0BRAC and GNO team up on joint recruiting trip to Germanyhttp://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/brac-and-gno-team-up-on-joint-recruiting-trip-to-germany/
http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/brac-and-gno-team-up-on-joint-recruiting-trip-to-germany/#commentsTue, 16 Jun 2015 15:58:22 +0000http://gnoinc.org/?post_type=news_posts&p=5598Executives from the Baton Rouge Area Chamber and GNO Inc. are spending the week together in Germany on a joint recruiting trip, which the groups say is an example of regional cooperation that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. The team, which also includes representatives from Louisiana Economic Development and Entergy Louisiana, are marketing the southeast Louisiana chemical corridor to European chemical engineering and processing companies gathered at a week-long trade fair in Frankfort called ACHEMA.

“We have a lot to offer here to attract companies to the Gulf Coast,” BRAC President and CEO Adam Knapp tells Daily Report from Germany. “This is one of the few times BRAC and GNO are on a recruiting mission together, but we’re trying to promote the Gulf Coast Super Region.”

So far, Knapp says the delegation has been well received as it promotes the Super Region as a premier location for process and chemical engineering industries and investment.

Louisiana remains a top destination for foreign direct investment, with more than $38.5 billion in announced projects since 2008, according to BRAC. Since 2006, companies including BASF, Benteler, and Syngenta have invested more than $1.6 billion in Louisiana. Today, the Gulf Coast Super Region is home to 182 international companies with 831 locations. Ninety-three of those companies represent foreign direct investment by chemical/petrochemical companies.

In the decade since Hurricane Katrina, the business communities of Baton Rouge and New Orleans led by BRAC and GNO Inc. have worked far more closely than in the past, particularly in the development of the Super Region concept. The organizations take joint canvassing trips together around the country and meet regularly. Still, a joint recruiting trip is a noteworthy indicator of how far they have come in their collaborative endeavors.

“We’re more effective when we promote the Super Region together,” Knapp says. “And we all benefit from the positive results.”

]]>http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/brac-and-gno-team-up-on-joint-recruiting-trip-to-germany/feed/0Major League Gaming Announces World Finals In New Orleanshttp://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/major-league-gaming-announces-world-finals-in-new-orleans/
http://gnoinc.org/news/region-news/major-league-gaming-announces-world-finals-in-new-orleans/#commentsTue, 09 Jun 2015 15:46:51 +0000http://gnoinc.org/?post_type=news_posts&p=5596NEW ORLEANS – Major League Gaming, the longest running eSports league in the world, announced Monday it will be partnering with the City of New Orleans to host the MLG World Finals at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on October 16 – 18, 2015.

The 3-Day event will feature the world’s best Dota 2 and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare teams competing for over $500,000.

Greater New Orleans, Inc. worked with its partners at the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau, New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, and New Orleans Business Alliance for the past eight months to help bring the MLG World Finals to Greater New Orleans.

“Greater New Orleans, Inc. is thrilled that Major League Gaming has selected New Orleans for its championship in October,” said Michael Hecht, President and CEO of Greater New Orleans, Inc. “At the same time that GNO, Inc. and our partners at the Conventions and Visitors Bureau and New Orleans Convention Center ensure this is the signature championship event of video gaming, Major League Gaming will help solidify Greater New Orleans’ reputation as the fastest growing software market in America.”

“We are happy to announce that New Orleans will host the 2015 Major League Gaming World Finals,” said Mayor Mitch Landrieu. “New Orleans continues to host some of the world’s best events and this will be another unbelievable experience for New Orleans residents and visitors alike. With a booming entrepreneurial community, great sports traditions and a vibrant, diverse-culture, New Orleans is the perfect city for world-class sports and gaming entertainment.”

“New Orleans’ tech industry is booming like never before and is now a critical asset to the city’s entrepreneurial economy,” said Stephen Perry, CEO New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau. “The timing could not be better for the city to host Major League Gaming, leveraging a natural synergy with our burgeoning digital media and entertainment industries in the best business climate we have ever seen. From the world-class hotels to award-winning restaurants, the city is ready to welcome the MLG Pro Circuit for the first time. We look forward to building this partnership as the economic and cultural renaissance in New Orleans continues to flourish.”

The 2015 World Finals will serve as a milestone in MLG history as the 100th live event. Celebrating a rich tradition of MLG eSports that to date has seen over 50,000 live event competitors, 45 million online matches played by over 10 million registered users and $13.5 million awarded in prize money.

“For the better part of a decade we’ve been hosting incredible tournaments and given out an insane amount of prize money, and we wanted to honor that tradition with our 100th event by making it bigger and better than ever before” said Mike Sepso, President and Cofounder of MLG, “Fans will get multiple competitions, the best teams in the world, and all the excitement of New Orleans over the course of 3 days, in what we hope will be an event to remember for years to come.”

“We are excited that MLG chose New Orleans as host of the 2015 World Championship,” said Melissa Ehlinger, interim CEO of the New Orleans Business Alliance. “This decision affirms the strength of the New Orleans digital media landscape and signals the growing reputation the city enjoys as a gaming hub.”

eSports fans from all over the globe will have the opportunity to connect with fellow eSports fans in New Orleans to celebrate an historic occasion in MLG history and witness the best players compete over 3 days for $500,000 in cash prizes, including a championship Sunday hosted in the Convention Center’s state of the art theater.